I really hate to hear stories

like this. Really short version: 5YO finds gun in home, shoots self in stomach, now dead.

[Engage rambling speculation completely devoid of any first hand facts. ]
Why is these things always seem to happen when dad is at home babysitting the kids? Last one of these was back in February. Allow me to quote from back then:

Why does this smell like dad was screwing around cleaning his gun, shot junior, then blamed it on the 2YO? IFF this is the case, I don't know how he can live with himself. I can't imagine enough alcohol BP Meds in the world would drown this memory.

Same question here, 'cept no 2YO in the picture. Instead the trigger-pulling blame is on the now deceased 5YO. Latest reports say the sheriff investigators are still investigating who exactly pulled the trigger, but quickly add "The dad is not a suspect". The follow on "at this time." was just an echo in my head.

The present story, 5YO finds gun and shoots self in stomach, is bad enough. But if inflicted by dad, how devoid of a soul do you have to be to get over that? I simply cannot fathom.

I recall back to NRA Hunter safety back in 7th grade (I think Dick Nixon was prez) and the "Rule #2" admonition - never point a gun at anything you do not want to destroy. I was thinking at the time, "that's stupid, the gun has a safety, it CAN'T go off. Why not? Sounds like great fun!" (Ok, I was far more trusting/naive back then. By the end of the course I was a believer). This was reinforced several years later taking a class in statistics (sadistics) and learning about what they called a "Type II" error. That is an error where the cost of being wrong far outweighs the benefit of being right. The book used the example of taking a picture of your child with their head in the open jaws of a live alligator (or was it a Lion?). Ok, it's a cool pic if it works. But if the 'gatorCarnivore senses the tender morsel and snaps the jaws shut on said loved one's head with several thousand pounds of force, was it worth the risk?

Pointing guns at trusting loved ones falls squarely in the same category. The "reward" (what reward, a laugh?) cannot possibly outweigh the risk. One-in-a-million?, one-in-a-billion, trillion, quadrillion, qintillion. It's just not worth it. There simply are not enough zeros in this world to put the risk/reward ratio into positive territory.